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Immigrant children? Hundreds already here

Jack Walsworth, jwalsworth@enquirer.com
3:42 p.m. EDT July 25, 2014

Pool via Getty Images
Two young girls watch a World Cup soccer match on TV Wednesday from their holding area in Nogales, Ariz., where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being held. Two young girls watch a World Cup soccer match on TV from their holding area in Nogales, Ariz., where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center, on June 18, 2014.(Photo: Pool via Getty Images, Pool via Getty Images)

On Thursday Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio announced it applied for a Health and Human Services grant that would allow 50-100 immigrant children to come to Cincinnati.

Here's how the placements work: Once the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) receives a child from the Department of Homeland Security, the ACF has the responsibility to seek placement options in the child's best interest.

Placement options usually involve releasing children to sponsors. So far 30,000 children have been released to sponsors this year, through July 7.

Each sponsor receives a background check. Sponsors are typically a parent, relative or a family friend.

The children are vaccinated and medically screened before they are released to a sponsor. Children with a contagious condition are not released. If ORR cannot identify a sponsor, the child will typically remain in ORR care.

The sponsor is responsible for ensuring that the child attends all future immigration proceedings and reports to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for removal, should an immigration judge issue a removal or voluntary departure order.

HHS officials did not return calls to the Enquirer.

President Barack Obama met with Central American leaders Friday to urge them to help slow the stream of unaccompanied children from their countries to the U.S., as House Republicans tried to agree on their own proposed solution to the crisis at the Mexican border.

More than 57,000 minors have arrived since October, mostly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. The trio of nations has become one of the most violent regions in the world in recent years, with swaths of all three countries under the control of drug traffickers and street gangs that rob, rape and extort ordinary citizens with impunity.

In recent weeks, the number of children being apprehended daily has fallen by roughly half, but White House officials said seasonal patterns or other factors unrelated to the administration's efforts may be responsible for some of the decline.